Promoted to Wife (Destiny Bay) (26 page)

A wife?
 
No, probably a valet.
 
She bit her lip at the thought, knowing it was crazy.
 
But somehow he didn't have the look of a man who would iron it himself.

These thoughts flashed through her mind as she stood there, suspended in time.
 
Somehow his touch seemed to have cast a spell on her. His tanned fingers gripped her wrist tightly and she couldn’t seem to gather the strength to do anything about it.
 
She found herself staring at the contrast between his dark skin and her own creamier tone as though she was in a trance and he pulled her in closer, almost pressing her against his body.
 

“Wait for it,” he murmured very close to her ear.
 

She shivered.

Then his eyes met hers again and something happened. She wasn't sure just what it was, but some sort of connection was made. It was as though he knew her and she knew him on some basic, nonverbal level. The moment quivered between them, and then his lip curled cynically and his attention rocketed to the other side of the floor.

“Okay—now!” he ordered firmly, letting go with a shove. “Call out 'thief’ just as loud as you can. Make a scene.”
 
He grinned.
 
“Come and get me, baby.”

She watched, stunned, as he turned and began to stride quickly toward the escalator. “Th…thief,” she whispered, then glanced around at the shoppers walking past.

“Thief!” she called more loudly. “Stop that man! He's taking a watch!”

People hesitated on all sides, looking about curiously, but no one made a move to stop him. Shelley stared at them all, astounded.
 

“Isn't someone going to stop him?” she cried.

The women merely gaped at her, and the nearest men began to avoid her accusing gaze.

“Oh!”

Shelley pulled in air and glared at them.
 

“Then I'll do it myself,” she cried, and instantly she was running through the store in the direction the man had taken, golden hair flying out behind her. “Stop that man!” she shouted again as she thought she saw a flash of him just ahead. “Stop that thief!”

Faces blurred on either side as she dodged past the mannequins, but no one stepped out to help her. By now, she was motivated almost as much by her anger at the unhelpful bystanders as by the crime itself.
 

This was what the world had come to, was it? No one ready to stand up for justice and fairness? All right. So be it. Shelley herself would become a one-woman vigilante committee.

She bounded down the moving escalator two steps at a time, pushing past the standing riders.
 
She caught sight of the man just below and her adrenalin surged.
 

“You stop right there!” she cried as she raced up to him.
 
He was almost to the heavy glass doors that led out onto the street and into the town of Destiny Bay. He turned back at the sound of her voice and she threw herself at him, “like,” she would tell her friend Robin later when the sting of the whole affair had dimmed enough to joke about it, “an angry Scottish terrier at a disinterested Great Dane.”

Taking up handfuls of trench coat to keep hold of him, she managed to foil his escape. But now that she had him, what on earth was she going to do with him?

“Someone call the manager,” she called to the crowd that was gathering. “Quickly.”

Yes, quickly. She looked up into his eyes and found them disconcertingly amused. “What took you so long?” he murmured for only her to hear. “I thought I was going to have to come back and do all this over again.”

She straightened, releasing one hand but holding on to him with the other. Blinking up into his sparkling blue gaze, she frowned. “I don't get it,” she began. “Do you mean to tell me you want to—?”

“Shhh.” He put a finger to her lips. “Not now.”

There wasn't time for explanations. Suddenly the store manager was there, along with two huge, uniformed policemen. Then Shelley's prisoner was emptying his pockets of the three watches, two fine calf leather wallets, and a small electronic device he'd picked up during his trip through the store.

Shelley stood back, watching in confusion. Her part was over, but for some reason she couldn't turn away. She'd caught a thief, but only because he'd wanted to be caught. Now that she had time to think, she knew he could easily have pulled out of her grasp. He could have outrun her even more easily if he'd really been trying. Why would anyone want to be caught shoplifting?

“It's Miss Carrington, isn't it?
 
Hi.
 
I’m Kurt.” One of the policemen smiled at her. She knew he might have seen her on one of her trips to the local station house. Her office partner did a lot of work with the department of probation, and she occasionally went along when he was called in to do psychological evaluations of prisoners.

On the other hand and more likely, he knew who she was because everyone in town knew all the Carringtons.
 
That was a fact she should have remembered before being so crazy as to move back here and try to create a career for herself in her old hometown.
 
This wasn’t a place where she could go incognito.
 

Have a taste for something more hard-hitting and supernatural?

DEAD FURST

by
Kent R. Conrad

(From a review on Amazon)

“Most importantly, however, this is a story that grabs you by the guts and never lets you go.”

(an excerpt)

The night I died was still and cool - the weird cool that L.A. surprises you with mid-fall, when you’re still running the A.C. in the car during the day. A dewy condensation sparkled off the side-mirrors of the cars parked on either side of the street, crowding together as if to keep warm. I’m a parallel parker nonpareil, so there was barely room for breath between my little Honda and the Prius in front of it, license plate “GRNBB.
The place where I was killed had a still quietness, hidden from the city. I leaned against my car, hiding from the flickering street light three houses down, and listened. I could hear the thick wet sounds of Echo Lake, the rumble of traffic just down the hill, but far enough away that I might have been in Mojave - except Mojave’s got stars and all of L.A.’s stars are on the streets, or in the clubs, or waiting in the house across the street from the man with the camera.

Available on Kindle, Nook

From
DoorKnock Publishing